The breadth of survivors’ emotional reactions to disasters, crises, and traumas can be extreme, ranging from laughter to anger, or withdrawal to acting out. Crisis workers must try to understand the disaster, crisis, or trauma from the survivor’s point of view, while appearing nonjudgmental and providing support. Of equal importance, crisis workers must understand that support might entail meeting survivors’ basic needs, such as hunger, rather than emotional needs. For instance, helping a survivor of a hurricane to load personal belongings into a truck, finding the survivor a meal, or providing the survivor with shelter for the night might be more helpful than facilitating his or her emotional response to the event. Much of crisis and disaster intervention is attending to very basic physical needs before anything else.

For this Assignment, you will review three case studies, select one to which you will respond, and explain how you might apply a crisis intervention model and crisis intervention skills and strategies to the survivors in the case study you chose.